Let's Talk About Gaming News Sites

[Forlorn Drifter]

Back in the day, I used to read a ton of Kotaku, Joystiq, and 1up. That was also when I was way into next-gen gaming, getting hammered, and social media. Then I grew up.

Now, it's a modest life of Hardcore Gaming 101, Retro Collect, and the occasional glance at Game Informer (print). And a nice stout beer every now and then.

But I wonder, technological advances to retro systems aside, is there really that much news to have on retro gaming? Unreleased games, homebrews, backroom stories, and what else? I feel retro gaming can sometimes be like the oldies station: always full of good hits, but if you think about it, always the same songs (except with homebrews).

Ahh, I might not have been specific enough. I'm all for retro game news, especially with all the Retrons and such going on right. However, I was looking for general game news- new releases, who's doing what, etc. I try to keep up with both for various reasons. I just flat out want gaming news. Nothing else. Don't care about reviews, opinion pieces, other forms of entertainment sometimes covered on gaming sites, political banter. Just tell me who's making a game and why. If politics come up, it better be that a game got banned somewhere, somebody is being sued for some reason, etc.

[Erik_Twice]

I just flat out want gaming news.

I would just browse a big gaming forum from time to time, you'll probably be able to follow the news that way.

[BoringSupreez]

Eh, I mainly just read RockPaperShotgun and PCGamer for my current gaming news. But then again, I'm part of the PC Gaming Master Race.

haha those are the two sites I visit religiously as well.

RPS and PC Gamer have both lost my readership thanks to bellyaching over stupid crap. Seriously, how can you get actually upset over the PC Gaming Master Race meme? It's all in fun, and WWII has been over for 70 years now.

Blatant agendas and ulterior motives are why I stopped using Polygon and Gamespot a couple of years back as well. They're better written than say, Kotaku, but that's like saying Huffington Post is higher quality than MSNBC. Still the same thing. Obviously, me and BoneSnapDeez are on different ends of the spectrum here.

I was disappointed to see Destructoid's decline in quality lately. They felt rather like a last remnant of old gaming media, but the level of effort and research they've been putting into their articles lately has just been subpar.


But now, for the good ones!

Nowadays, I mainly use The Escapist, since it's home to my favorite gaming critic, Yahtzee. He's got a good article series, Zero Punction videos (of course), and produces a lot of great Youtube content as well.

Eurogamer, thanks to their decently high-quality writing, decently clean website layout, and a seemingly genuine attempt to avoid bias and politics, also gets my view. They've made missteps in the past (look up the stories of their Battlefield 4 and SimCity reviews for an example), but they seem to be trying to move past that. They don't even use numerical scores anymore, beyond the optional award of a silver or gold badge.

Other than that, I mostly stick to Youtubers like TotalBiscuit, Game Maker's Toolkit, and Super BunnyHop. It's nice to see the video feed while they talk about the games, and since none of them have any business ties to traditional gaming media, they're free to speak their mind. And Super BunnyHop even has an actual journalism degree, unlike most gaming journalists.

[Erik_Twice]

I think the gist of it is that one has to look for the kind of game coverage that better suits your needs, the kind of people who enjoy, say IGN, would not be happy reading my blog or viceversa.

[BoringSupreez]

I think the gist of it is that one has to look for the kind of game coverage that better suits your needs, the kind of people who enjoy, say IGN, would not be happy reading my blog or viceversa.

I don't know how anyone could enjoy IGN. I don't even know what their content is like anymore, the site layout is just an abomination. Huge font sizes, pictures and ads slathered everywhere, everything has a script, it hurts my head to look at it.

[Exhuminator]

the site layout is just an abomination

This is part of why I stopped regularly reading USgamer.

When a website changes its layout to be more readable on a smart phone and tablet, while eschewing its readability for laptops and desktops, that website has made a bad decision. The decision was of course spurred by general statistics saying more people access the internet over mobile devices than computers nowadays. While that is true in a broad sense, what reports like that don't mention are the actual sites that mobile users are accessing. Most people are accessing Facebook and iTunes and Tinder perhaps, not actually browsing deep and broad internet sites. If more research was done showing the actual sites mobile users are hitting when they "are on the internet", it would be clear that sites with large volumes of information like IGN or USgamer, would be better off making their layouts more readable on traditional devices (like a laptop).

Of course this problem could be further mitigated by more web developers not being lazy shits. You can easily have your website determine the access device that is viewing it. Then have your website serve up the properly formatted version of itself depending on said device type. Amazon already does this, for example.

[Snatch1414]

Man I was a big IGN fan around maybe 12 years ago or so. They've gotten huge so naturally they're now like the ESPN of video games. Oh well, it happens. To be honest IGN isn't a bad follow on Twitter. There's a lot of shit, but they're Twitter account is a one stop shop for any big news bits including movies.

As far as all these sites covering stuff from an SJW perspective, it's all about the clicks. The shitty part about the age we live in is you're better off making noise and attracting attention than simply writing something interesting and writing it well. It's all about the clicks and views. Every site is going to have a review of the latest WoW expansion. Having a tightly wound feminist write that same review? Now you're following the money! Sucks but it's true.

I don't read much gaming news other than Twitter simply because come on, everyone's on the take these days. It's a joke, and it's all about getting as many sponsors and underhanded deals as possible, not writing truthful content. The truth might scare away some of the checks they get from these companies..........

[Tanooki]

I stopped liking IGN back after they broke away from being IGN64. They took to just saying the most stupid junk, super opinionated on things, fanboyed like hell and acted and continue to act very unprofessional. I used to say this basically. Just remember, IGN are the first three letters in IGNorant. Still pretty true sadly. I keep their handheld site bookmarked with a few others, just for skimming news bits but I won't touch the rest. I like the secondary tier stuff as they try and be a little more honest and less stupid because they need to work to attract people while the big AAA sized sites can just act terrible and replace people they annoy fairly easily.